


You Should See the Other Guy

by RobinsonsWereHere



Series: I Swear to Love You All My Life [3]
Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Angst, Family Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jules whump, Movie Night, Tears, as domestic as you can get with a cop married to a PI, married shules, shules children, stubborn Juliet, that's a thing now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: That’s the thing about family- it makes the hard stuff harder, but the good stuff better. Family are the ones you never want to let go of.





	You Should See the Other Guy

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by listening to The Greatest Showman and thinking about Shules. Please don't ask me to make a timeline for this series I don't even know what year it is in real life

‘Movie Night’ at the Spencer house consists of Shawn holding Zoe in his lap as Rory curls into his side with Leo in a ball next to them and Jake, who insists he only needs to cuddle during scary movies, on the other side. Tonight’s pick is _The Greatest Showman_ and they’re already well into it, the opening notes of _Tightrope_ playing, when the door opens.

“Oh, it’s movie night!” Exclaims his wife, setting her gun and her purse on a shelf out of reach of young, grabby hands.

Shawn pauses the movie as all four children run to her. “Mama!” screams Zoe, hurling herself at Juliet. Shawn frowns as he notices her wince; Zoe is strong, for a six year old, but not too forceful. Still, Juliet wraps them all in a group hug.

“What movie is it?”

“The Greatest Showman!” they all chorus.

“Oh, fun. What part are we at?” Juliet disentangles herself and gives Shawn a kiss. She tastes like blood but when he gives her a look, she ignores him.

“PT’s gonna go on tour with Jenny,” Jake explains.

“She’s my favorite!” Zoe adds.

Leo wrinkles his nose. “But she’s the bad guy.”

Juliet pulls Leo onto her lap as she leans into Shawn. “Not all movies have to have a bad guy,” she reminds him. On that note, Shawn hits play.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Juliet bites her lip to keep from crying out as she stretches, her bruised ribs not helped by staying in a tight ball for so long. Still, she doesn’t hesitate to lift a sleeping Leo into her arms. Shawn has clearly noticed something is up, but he can’t do much more than give her a disapproving look because Zoe is climbing onto him piggyback style and Rory and Jake have started hitting each other with the throw pillows. “Hey, cut that out,” he reprimands, standing between them.

“Wow, it’s past nine o’clock,” Juliet comments. “I think we should all go to bed.”

“No! I wanna read my book!” Jake drops the pillow and takes off down the hall. Shawn grimaces. “You get the twins to bed and I’ll deal with Jake?”

She nods. “Whoever finishes first can tuck Zoe in.”

Zoe rarely resists going to bed and is now old enough to brush her teeth by herself. Juliet runs a hand through her daughter’s brown curls. “Do you want to go get in pajamas, sweetheart?”

“Yes ma’am.” Zoe gives her one last hug- thankfully around her legs and not her ribs- and then pads down the hall to her bedroom. Juliet takes Rory’s hand and leads them into the bathroom, waking Leo gently to brush his teeth.

“Don’t wanna.”

“But then how will you get the popcorn out?”

“Don’t care.”

“Leo, you have to brush your teeth, buddy.” Juliet sticks the toothbrush into the four-year-old’s mouth and he relents, clumsily moving it around, though he pouts the whole time. More of his spit ends up on her shirt than in the sink, but it’s not the worst bodily fluid she’s been covered in today.

She gets Rory and Leo into pajamas and under their blankets, and by the time she finishes singing a lullaby, Shawn has said goodnight to both Jake and Zoe. “He’s totally reading under the blanket with a flashlight,” he says when they meet in the hallway.

She sighs and leans into him. “Good. Maybe he’ll sleep past seven.”

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Shawn sits on the bed, frowning as he watches Juliet undress. In the low lighting he couldn’t quite see the extent of her injuries, but now that she’s in the brighter light of the bedroom, he can see the things he hadn’t noticed before. She turns slightly and he sucks in a breath as he catches sight of her neck.

“Jules,” he asks, getting off the bed and stepping towards her, “is that a handprint?”

She turns to face him a he can clearly see purpling imprints of five fingers, as if they’d wrapped her throat in a choke hold. Also, her navy blue blouse is drenched in what looks like blood. “What happened?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

She shrugs, looking as though she’d like to step back. “Nothing. A perp got to me a little before Carlton did.”

“Jules, babe, that doesn’t look like ‘a little’.” He wants to reach for her but he’s afraid she’ll flinch away. “What else?”

She shrugs. “Only some of it is my blood. I took a crowbar to the ribs a few times. Also, a punch to the jaw. My arm got twisted behind my back a bit far, but Carlton put it back in place.”

He blinks. “Jules, have you gone to the ER?”

“No. I’m fine.”

Shawn sighs. “Do you want a massage, or a bath, or something?”

Juliet chews on her lip. “A bath would be nice.”

“Alright. Get undressed, I’ll run the water.” He leans forward carefully and she kisses him gently before he heads into the master bathroom.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Juliet dries herself off but doesn’t bother with a robe, padding into the bedroom and opening Shawn’s dresser. She tugs on one of his shirts and them climbs into bed, lying on her husband’s chest. He combs his fingers through her hair. “I worry about you, Jules. I know you don’t, I know you deal with way more shit than you should have to, but still. I worry.”

“I know,” she murmurs, “but I guess I feel like if I ignore it, I can keep it from invading when we’re at home. Jake is almost old enough to understand that if I get hurt too bad at work, I might not come home. I don’t… I don’t want to mix our family up in everything that happens out there.” Shawn laughs, and she glares up at him. “What?”

“Jules, it’s not just you. You know what I do. You know what my dad does. This is a crime-fighting family, babe.” She groans and presses her face into his ribcage. “Jules, I’m not saying you need to tell the kids everything that happens at the station. But every once in a while, if you come home a little beat up, that’s okay. If we show them it’s nothing to worry about, it’ll make them less scared, not more.”

She meets his eyes again. “And if I’m the one who’s scared?”

“Well, so am I,” he sighs. “But every minute I hold you, the fear goes a little further away. So maybe… maybe, if we hold on long enough, we’ll be okay.”

She wraps herself around him and her tears soak his shirt. He holds her tighter, careful of her ribs, and presses kisses to her head.

_That’s the thing about family,_ Shawn thinks. _It makes the hard stuff harder, but the good stuff better. Family are the ones you never want to let go of._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it, leave kudos or a comment, or come find me at chiefkarenvick on tumblr!


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